Business Strategy and Corporate Governance

This course is taught by Prof. external pageEric Zolt (UCLA), Prof. Alexander Stremitzer (CLE/ETH Zurich), and Alessandro Tacconelli (CLE/ETH Zurich). The class uses case studies to explore complex legal, business and ethical issues that surround modern corporate governance with a special emphasis on tech companies. Issues include corporate purpose (Airbnb), challenges related to start-ups and founder-dominated firms (Theranos and WeWork), disruptors ignoring established legal rules (Uber), and governance in non-profit organizations (FIFA).

The class focuses on the design of corporate governance of companies that face distinct challenges intrinsically linked to them being high tech, disruptive businesses. It is an inherent feature of high tech companies to push the boundary with respect to both business models and technical solutions into areas, where regulation is scant, inexistent, or maladapted. Corporate governance therefore faces particular challenges of how to manage legal exposure.

Students will become familiar with legal and business issues related to different types of corporate governance challenges in tech start-ups. The case study approach will encourage students to examine different legal, business and ethical challenges in the context of high profile and real world settings. This approach will also encourage students to work collaboratively on different types of projects.

The course is open to ETH students through the Science in Perspective program of the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences.

For more information on the course, please click here.